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Murali Behara
21 July 2008 @ 04:51 am
dodge the damn mess  
I don't know how our dear nation filled with extraordinary intellect and wisdom will make things better for us average folks. ok I was being sarcastic about intelligence. we have proved time and again by electin idiots to public offices. we are an enlightened nation who will give up our lives to uphold the evil abhramic religious idealogy. for gods sake we believe in ordinary citizens right to militant ways of life yet we want to distinguish ourselves from abrahamic-religion based extremism somewhere east of african continent.

im sick and tired of mediocrity this nation exhibits when it is as prgressive as canada or sweeden and very capable of embracing rationale and get a status quo on religious sentiments.
 
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Murali Behara
20 July 2008 @ 09:31 am
this day  
im lovin this new pocket pc and phone. earlier thia week I was workinout and injuured my ribs, luckily it is minor and am sure it will get better. I think my brain chemistry keeps me from stayin upbeat and what I really hate is the influence of social environment.

I was watchin some bbc videos this weekend and one was about dawkins. suddenly I realized that all the people who impressed me all my life were all atheists. its a feelin of lack of control, and low self esteem combined with undesirable brain chemistry that attracted me to religion and other irrational thouught processes. so am I comitting bigotry against a vast majority of people who are religious and likely to think that life is not rational?! I will just have to say that one has to do their own home work and not everyone likes to do that. reminds me how much i hated homework when I was a kid. I think in the end my curiosity and ironically hard headedness saved me in the sense that I elected to pursue physical sciences and graduated college. yet I have not acheieved anything fantastic and realizing im hurtin myself by stayin mediocre.

I have to realize that my desire to join information technology business is just to break free of my 3rd world living conditions. now that here im in america I can pursue what I want to without compromising much on the quality of life and infact more mature and empowered in terms of technology.

after more than a decade of arriving in america im going to be a citizen on aug 15, and politically break free from india. it is also the day india gained independence from british!
 
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Murali Behara
17 July 2008 @ 10:46 am
"McCain's off color jokes ?!"  
Apparently the old man has pretty crazy sense of humor that proves that he's both a jar-head and doesn't live in the real-world.

From my point of view, Chelsea is more attractive than Cindy and is a much better catch cos she is  who i'm more likely to consider beautiful from inside and out (well ideally a girl who has intelligence, healthy body, pretty-face, sense of contemporary style, values education & a career, has intellectual curiosity, has a modern, global & a rational outlook on life).

 
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Murali Behara
07 July 2008 @ 04:54 pm
thoughts  
lots of thoughts, but too busy (some times too lazy) to persist them in script. in a way it's good to reevaluate my thoughts at a later point in time because if some of them turn into speech, the questions and comments filled with rationale are only fit for uncensored stand-up act.

for instance i'd be in a public area like an airport or a restaurant and people who are greedy, gluttonous, cruel & insensitive disgust me and i'd like to say how i feel about them. then i meet or listen to people who are extremely self-reliant, self-aware, considerate and thoughtful in every act and word they utter and if i say i'm extremely impressed is an understatement.

another thing that bothers me is the all-pervading stench of bigotry. the most common form is the act of setting low expectations and prejudging others or sometimes judging others based on shallow observations. when it comes to judging, one can never be wrong with an attitude such as, 'i do not have the training to analyze the data and arrive at a rational conclusion'.

last but not least, i'm deeply perturbed by a particular aspect of life. the fact that how the very simple things in life that confers so much joy are so complex and so out of reach for most of us (or at least they seem to be). 
 
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Murali Behara
16 June 2008 @ 10:26 pm
god and love  
recollecting my active participation in matters of faith, i have to admit that, genetically i may have a predisposition towards matters of god and faith. the same reasoning can be extended to my "wanting to be in love".
 
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Murali Behara
15 June 2008 @ 02:44 pm
commendable role played by the good fathers of this country  
regarding my last post- the intrusion of religion in the public lives & government of us citizens is really unfortunate but we don't need religion to direct or acknowledge the commendable role played by the good fathers who are proud of and are there for their kids  and fighting the demographics of kids growing up to be adults with psychological and self-esteem issues(sometimes putting up with 'psychotic & stupid women' who gave birth to their children).
 
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Murali Behara
15 June 2008 @ 12:55 pm
Father's day from my colored view of the religious world......  
"Dad, be a good role model" was picked for the sermon this weekend by the baptist church near my house. according to gallup poll, 50% of the electorate in united states take the scriptures literally. i've always said,  that it's shocking, how the technologically advanced, modern society such as the american society can be so cozy with something like an abrahamic religion which is filled with stories of patriarchs & father-figures who committed incest (example genesis 19), rape & murder of even minors especially in the name of 'god'. wow! given their legacy, the clergy has quite the nerve to sermon anything about fatherhood.


i'm not cutting a slack for the primitive eastern-traditions such as chinese, japanese or indian (because they never were organized religions with heads initiating common people into the religion) which were equally bad if not worse. especially after the islamic* conquest of indian sub-continent, the society had to readjust with the immigrants of violent tradition (and unfortunately absorbed some of the violence which is a proof of horrific practices in the 18th century, documented by the british historians). it takes some research and analysis by the intelligent-rational-minds to see that, in a few thousands years the society in the indian subcontinent  progressed from a bloody war-mongering aryan culture to a pacifist one that gave the world, stuff like "buddhism (path of wisdom / self-realization)", "sativikaahara(saintly diet, that didn't involve violence)", "tantra (the technique)", "kamasutra(principles of desire)".

*1st monotheistic abrahmic religion that conquered the indian subcontinent and spread by violence
 
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Murali Behara
12 June 2008 @ 08:32 pm
thought processes.............  
i think i do apply rigor to my thought and hence my conclusion about the irrelevance of religion, pseudo-science and the fluff called "spirituality" to my day-to-day life. it was not a sudden jaundiced view of the world but really a gradual transformation in the past two and half years. the transformation was definitely for the better.

two years ago, i suddenly found myself very alone and it felt like there was nothing really solid to to hang on to. the only thing that seemed steady & sane was my ability to rationalize and reason everything. it became absolutely necessary to decipher & understand myself to save what is left of me and to build my future on it.

even when i still claimed to be just "spiritual" but not religious, i've always thought that the 13 episodes of Carl Sagan's COSMOS were very profound. But it's only two years ago, i really started listening to the message of this stalwart of our times. i've also read a few thought leaders who were incidentally physicsts and vice-versa (my reading included biographies of rebel scientists). so gradually i arrived at a place where i realized the purpose and significance of my education in science (physics), which is to investigate truth based on analyzing data with dispassion.

as the days passed by i've realized how little time i have and what a futile exercise it is to ponder over stuff that is of irrelevance to my physical existence. so the interest in anything "spiritual" slowly died for the good. i also realized that the definition of god is something that is physically intangible and incomprehensible and really has no bearing on my day-to-day life and even the questions regarding the same seemed illogical and meaningless. i was automatically categorized as an agnostic.

scientific enterprise seemed to be the real deal because it is not only addresses things that are of relevance to our lives here and now, but takes on some of the toughest problems as challanges that requires courage, perseverance, intelligence & wisdom. never has there been a time in the documented human history, where a civilization has been able to park their vehicles in geosynchronous orbits and were able to raise the dead (people who would have been declared dead just a 100 years ago). it was a slow evolutionary processes to get where we are, a civilized, pacifist society (except for that part of the contemporary society for which religious dogma & primitive idealogy is paramount).

even five years ago, i would have not made a special trip to barnes & noble looking for a book on atheism & secular thought by a scientist that i watched on television, and that too just one interview.

physicists who were after the very fundamental building blocks of nature & hoping to look at the edge of the universe were always on my altar. but people who understood fundamental building blocks of life to complex living organism were never on the forefront of my mental dais. so a best-seller according to WSJ, NYTimes & Washington-Post was indeed a fabulous reading and i'm looking towards raising my consciousness by applying more rigor to my thought.
 
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Murali Behara
09 June 2008 @ 09:49 am
update on "the god delusion"  
i managed to read like 50 pages of the book("the god delusion") on the plane and i have to say, that this is one of the most brilliantly written. it's a very convincing argument that, scientists who pursue life-sciences have an elevated consciousness relative to the ones who pursue physical sciences and i definitely think that when it comes to consciousness, people who pursue pure-sciences are ahead of the curve. i hope people without any scientific knowledge or training will be able to appreciate this. Every chapter & every page reads like a feast to my intellectual curiosity. Dawkins doesn't need my certificate but he sure is a first rate scientist.

Excerpts

"Intelligent Design has no evidence of it's own, but thrives like a weed in the gaps left by scientific knowledge"
"It is an essential part of scientific enterprise to admit ignorance and even exult in ignorance as a challenge to future conquests"
 
 
Current Mood: rejuvenated
 
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Murali Behara
08 June 2008 @ 01:11 pm
my "house" is like a......  
system, designed and built in a cookie cutter fashion. the vendor supplied sub-systems such as heaters, coolers & meters are alright, but the weakest job was done in terms of integration(the heating & cooling ducts), monitoring(don't know what went wrong until i call a technician) & user interfaces. like a typical consultant, from time-to-time, i go and apply a patch (for instance, the ducts are so inefficient, i had to duct-tape them all the time). my next house need to be built from ground up and i will personally supervise every little detail. i'm tired of keeping up with the house. i think i need to sell this house (anyway, 2200sqft is too much for one person).
 
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Murali Behara
30 April 2008 @ 07:04 am
There was a time when..............  
.............i didn't think very much about intermingling of religion & politics (especially from an indian cultural standpoint). these days i'm infuriated by how the religious zealots are so interested in hijacking the agenda of a modern nation & screwup a modern society such as ours. to preach one has to be arrogant because a preacher is not tested for his/her ability to analyze or rationalize and most of all higher education in psychology & physics certainly are not required credentials. a preacher certainly is not a teacher.

when barak obama was campaigning early on trying hard to establish he is also a church goer blah, blah....., i thought he's just another air-head. when audacity of hope was published with a mention of the church sermons as an inspiration, i totally lost interest (although i thought he is highly educated and is capable of shaking things up in washington). actually when he started talking about the issues, and demonstrated his excellent grasp & understanding of things, i became a supporter. the news anchors are accustomed to reading scripted news, and the public is not really used to do any rigorous analysis. somehow i have a suspicion that together they will do some damage to the campaign.

bottom line is that barak doesn't carry baggage like most other leaders, he understood & taught civil-rights, foresaw the mess in authorizing an invasion, tells us the hard facts (whether we like it or not), optimistic and has a very positive attitude. i think these are good credentials for him to be elected to a public office that focuses on public service. 
 
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Murali Behara
25 April 2008 @ 10:50 am
Demand for Cheap Shit is a reflection of 3rd World Standards of Living  
We have stopped demanding quality and are content with cheap shit made in 3rd world countries at the stores. Bottom lines for corporate stake-holders and low prices for consumers seems to be paramount. Makes me think that we are right on track to join the 3rd world with deteriorated standards of living. People don't seem to get that it is expensive to superior quality of materials & chemicals.

I don't want to be mis-understood and certainly not advocating that we improve the quality of life by increasing our foot-print in terms of our gluttonous consumption of non-renewable resource & energy. For instance, i wouldn't want to trade my PRIUS even with a FERRARI, but may be a CESSNA puddle jumper ;o)
 
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Murali Behara
17 April 2008 @ 09:16 am
For me, the most gratifying field of study  

Why? This video says it for me
 
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Murali Behara
15 April 2008 @ 11:31 am
NorthWest and Delta are merging  

they sent me an email stating how wonderful the merger is for the community, employes and the customers.

i would be interested to know win-win policies for both the airliner and the society. 

1. ability to schedule flights on-demand 
2. providing value for the money (not just stakeholders')
3. building intelligent systems to reduce excesses*
4. fleet upgrades to boost fuel efficiency
5. lobbying for use of shorter routes & cutting edge technology

civil & commercial aviation has a special place in my heart. never has there been a time in human history, where we could crisscross the planet in matter of hours like we do today. so sustaining this progress is what interests me more and what the airline industry and the aircraft manufacturing industry is doing matter a lot.

  
 
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Murali Behara
14 April 2008 @ 04:47 am
Genius  

it is spell-binding everytime i hear something like this. gabriel veninciano actually looked at eulers equations and thought they fit the description of strong forces inside the nucles. another amazing story is of leonard susskind who saw string theory in euler's equations. now that definitely is a genius.

 
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Murali Behara
13 April 2008 @ 11:48 am
 
european colonization of india was as early as 1498(vasco) and looking at the number of portugese colonies i wonder why english prevailed over portugese as the official language of the sub-continent ;o)  the city i was born(vizag on the east-coast) was colonized in 1682 by the british. 
 
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Murali Behara
13 April 2008 @ 12:35 am
April Flights  







Apr04 Los Angeles ==> Greensboro
Apr07 Greensboro  ==> Los Angeles
Apr11 Los Angeles ==> Greensboro
Apr14 Greensboro  ==> Los Angeles
Apr21 Los Angeles ==> Albany
Apr23 Albany      ==> Los Angeles
Apr25 Los Angeles ==> Greensboro
Apr28 Greensboro  ==> Los Angeles



 
 
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Murali Behara
12 March 2008 @ 11:17 pm
Flight Schedule for March  






14 Los Angeles  ==>  Greensboro 
15 Greensboro   ==>  Albany     
16 Albany       ==>  Greensboro 
17 Greensboro   ==>  Burbank    
21 Burbank      ==>  New York   
23 New York     ==>  Los Angeles
28 Los Angeles  ==>  Greensboro 
29 Greensboro   ==>  Newburgh    
29 Newburgh     ==>  Greensboro 
31 Greensboro   ==>  Los Angeles

 
 
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Murali Behara
08 March 2008 @ 06:21 pm
high-definition visuals  
in the past decade the advances in photonics have quietly changed the commercial electronics for the better- one word "resolution" (people old and young seem to be thrilled about this - just whisper HDTV & Blue-Ray). then there is the increase in ability to clock more instructions (in volatile silicon memory) using minimal energy that has improved graphics (hit with kids under 25). unfortunately the attitude of "old-people" has not kept up. i still hear the "old-people" complaining about the "superficiality" of the younger generation & their focus on flawless external appearance. but i'm thinking, wait till we actually will switch electronics/photonics from micro to nano. as superficial as we are, really there is everything to be excited about being young. 
 
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Murali Behara
13 February 2008 @ 07:51 pm
radiation density as a function of frequency  
 
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